Indonesian 419 Tsunami Scams

Old scams don’t go away. The Nigerian 419 scam became a bit more sophisticated not too long ago. In addition to the weepy story of a mysterious, deceased, incredibly wealthy relative that left no will but left behind lots and lots of money, the senders include a link to news stories around the globe. Somehow, the link is supposed to add credibility to this anonymous person’s claim from South Africa. Here is an example that got through Yahoo!’s spam filter today, notice the link circled in red. This news story happens to be from 2004:

If you receive one of these, delete it.

In our lab, we clicked on the link, and it took us to a legitimate CNN story. See the linked page here:

Aw, come on, doesn’t that make it believable?
No. This sort of email is fraudulent. Delete it.